Puglia Cycling Tour

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Tour Overview

Puglia is a land of discovery and adventure; it’s the perfect place to explore on a bike.

With its quiet roads lined with rock walls and majestic olive groves, to its coastal roads set along dramatic cliffs with white sand beaches and turquoise waters, this still largely undiscovered region of Italy rewards you at every turn and along every open plain. Its wild beauty and landscapes dotted with fairytale trulli and the twisted trunks of ancient olive trees standing still in time, captivate your spirit and your heart.

Still very much by Italians for Italians, this land between two seas, the Ionian and Adriatic, provides much more than a cycling trip. It’s a place to visit sooner rather than later as the word is definitely out, and our journey through its back roads will only leave you wanting more.

Expect long, warm summer days, spectacular and diverse scenery across the hills of the Valle d’Itria through to the open plains of the Salento, afternoons to relax and soak up the sun with swims in the turquoise seas and explorations of the historically significant and beautiful towns in which we stay.

Our journey through its authentic food and wine culture and diverse blend of unique accommodation styles including masserie, trulli and noble residences will see your Puglia discovery take you behind the postcard scenes.

Enjoy the slow pace of life and the so very southern Italian culture, the history and of course, the wonderful home grown food and wine on our Puglia cycling tour.

Get ready for a trip of true discovery – both on and off the bike.

Puglia Cycling Tour Ride Itinerary

Welcome to our Puglia Cycling Tour

Our daily rides through Puglia ensure you get to experience all of the landscapes it has to offer, from the stunning scenes along the coastal roads, the ancient olive groves of the Valle d’Itria and Salento, and the towns and villages through which we pass and stay. You’ll enjoy Puglia’s wild beauty and stunning, open landscapes and finish each day’s ride, with time to reflect and enjoy the beautiful places we stay.

Today’s warm up ride will see us hug the coast and meander down to a little coastal hamlet, as we work the kinks out of our legs and make the final adjustments to our bikes before turning inland and riding amongst the quintessential Puglian landscape of olive groves, dissected by tiny roads lined with low rock walls.

Today’s ride will see us leave the coast and head inland to the Valle d’Itria, also called “Trulli Valley” and the highest concentration of olive trees in Italy. We will ride through a number of small towns before reaching Alberobello, the UNESCO World Heritage town made up of 1500 Trulli before rolling to a stop at our sensational villa for the next three nights.

Highlight: Riding through the lanes and backroads lined with the fairy castle like trulli.Distance: 65kmElevation: 895m

We’ll roll into town for coffee, before heading west and making our way into one of Puglia’s regional parks, looping around to roll through a landscape covered in olive groves and vineyards. We’ll pass through Martina Franca’s centro storico, a gleaming jewel with its beautiful baroque historical centre, before heading in the direction of Cisternino, where we’ll enjoy the unique lunch experience.

Highlight: The landscape and canyons of the regional park.Distance: 92.5kmElevation: 1055m

Today we will roll along The Wine Road “DOC”, and past Martina Franca on the days loop from our trulli. It is a day of quiet backroads, with the sensational untouched Puglian landscape of olive groves, vineyards, trulli and the beautiful rock wall lined roads everywhere you turn.

Highlight: The endless network of amazing little roads that keep us off the beaten path.Distance: 90kmElevation: 1007m

Today is our long, but very flat day on the bike, with also 724m of descending. This is a day where we head to the coast and the beautiful Ionian Sea, heading in the direction of Porto Cesareo, a beautiful part of the western coast of Puglia, with a long sandy beach and stunning blue sea with shallow waters.

Enjoy the views as we hug the coastline on the way to our masseria, stopping for lunch at a seaside friggitoria or “fried fish shack”.

Highlight: The contrast of landscape as we move from inland and hit the coast.Distance: 124.4kmElevation: 535m

Today’s ride is a highlight as we once again hug the coast and quite literally ride around the heel of Italy. We will ride the undulating road past all of the little towns that line a coast renowned for its stunning sandy beaches, as you head further south, it’ll be hard to keep your eyes on the roads as you are treated to the spectacular views over the Adriatic sea.

Highlight: The continual view on our right as we move from the Ionian to the Adriatic sea.Distance: 83.5kmElevation: 999m

Today’s ride is a spectacular off the beaten path loop that sees us roll past beaches with fine white sand and will see us riding deeper into the Salento Peninsula, past the ancient groves of olive trees and quiet undisturbed country side, before turning back toward our charming seaside villa.

Highlight: A flat and fast loop through a secluded land.Distance: 65.6kmElevation: 327m

Our final ride is another that encapsulates all of the adventure from the Puglian landscape. We are once again off the beaten path, following rambling backroads that are lined with small rock walls, creating a border to the flat lands beyond, filled with olive groves. This is a day to appreciate the quiet isolation of the country, before arriving in to the spectacular town of Lecce.

Inclusions & Details

Accommodation & Meals

All breakfasts, lunches and dinners at a range of our favourite restaurants, osteria’s and home cooked locations, including nightly aperitivo hour and local wines and beers at each dinner.

Ride Support

Professional bilingual ride guides with extensive cycling experience, local knowledge and first aid experience, ensuring your riding experiences are truly local and take in many of the undiscovered back roads and rolling hills of this spectacular and diverse region.

Unique routes, available on GPS provided as part of the tour.

Support van on daily rides, with mechanical support and your safety as our priority.

Nutritious energy snacks and hydration are provided

Transfers & Activities

All transfers / transportation from pick up to drop off, including baggage and bike transportation.

Wine tastings and activities as outlined in the detailed tour itinerary.

Have more questions about our Puglia Cycling Tours?

Bike Hire & Gear

Full Carbon Road Bikes

You can choose to hire a Pinarello, Bianchi or Formigli bikes with either Campagnolo or Shimano groupsets.

Gravel Bikes

Going off road as well? Have the best of both worlds with a Bianchi or Cannondale gravel bike with disc brakes.

GPS

An easy to use GPS is provided for your use for the duration of the tour with our daily rides pre installed.

Non-Riding Partners

As part of our Puglia cycling tour, non-riding partners enjoy a customised travel program, designed to meet their interests and the best experiences Puglia has to offer. Whether its guided walks of historic towns and their unique architecture including the trulli of Alberobello, the sassi of Matera or the stunning whitewashed villages of Ostuni and Locorotondo, or exploring caves and olive groves, enjoying private olive oil tastings and cooking classes, non riding partners experience the beauty and uniqueness of each area we visit. Nancy personally hosts non-riding guests each day with a select range of activities to suit the group.

Accommodation

Enjoy our personally chosen range of typical Pugliese accommodation. From staying in restored trulli, magnificent seaside villas with views over turquoise waters, historic masserie in quiet countryside locations where working family farms are still producing wine and olive oil, this diverse experience brings together the beauty of ancient, historic Puglia with the hip, modern and restored Puglia.

Food & Wine

Eating and drinking is a highlight in Puglia.

With its rich copper-toned soils, the raw materials for much of Italy’s olive oil, wine and pasta, are grown here, giving rise to a cucina that is steeped in simple, organic produce – from delicious cheeses, artisanal olive oils and the famous orrechiette pasta with locally grown rape, to freshly caught seafood and the charcoal cooked meats of the butchers of Cisternino, your palate will delight in the array of taste sensations of Puglia.

Light refreshing white wines such as Fiano, through to sensational Rose’s and the earthy reds of Primitivo blend perfectly with the cuisine…not to mention the incredible array of artisanal beers, made locally in Puglia.

Testimonials

I WOULD LOVE TO DO IT AGAIN

Awesome riding and overall, a most enjoyable and fun experience that I would love to do again.

Peter G

A THOROUGHLY ENJOYABLE WEEK OF CYCLING, TOURING & EATING

Thanks for a thoroughly enjoyable week of cycling, touring, and eating. You guys did a brilliant job scouting out great places to stay, eat and riding routes that achieved everything anyone could dream of.

David M

ANOTHER GREAT TOUR & THE EXTRA FREE TIME IN THE AFTERNOON WAS APPRECIATED

Thanks for another great tour! Overall, it was fantastic and once again your attention to detail and thorough research has ensured a memorable holiday. Also, the extra free time in the afternoons was appreciated.